News

Lying on my back in a darkened room, having salt vigorously sprayed at my face through a plastic tube, it occurred to me that something odd has happened in the world of beauty.

The newest treatments, such as the sea salt microdermabrasion I was trying out at Toronto's Pure & Simple, include ingredients so geared to foodies that they might as well have come off a hot restaurant menu.

The path to preciousness goes like this: First, a basic and essential pantry item, say, olive oil, becomes a hot food item. In a flash, every recipe calls for a drizzle. Then, grocery store shelves suddenly bloom with so many boutique options - extra-fine, hand-pressed, organic - that you're out of the loop if your pantry stores just one. Next thing you know, olive oil is so wonderful for you that you're schmearing it on your legs.

Don't believe me? Just look at what happened to chocolate.

Chocolate used to be an Oh Henry bar; now, it's a way of life. There are chocolate fairs where celebrity artisans display handmade bars of 70 per cent cocoa melded with exotic spices on silk-lined shelves as if they were fine jewellery. Enthusiasts do chocolate yoga.

Your cosmetic bag might as well be made of chocolate. You can use the stuff on your face (Sensation Chocolat Paris sells an all-chocolate skin-care line that includes Mousse O Chocolat facial mask). And as a sunscreen for your décolletage (its antioxidant qualities are purported to fight sun damage). If you're down in the dumps, you can wash up with chocolate-scented mood-lifting soap and light a chocolate-scented candle. Like a growing number of spas, the Sapphire spa in Bayfield, Ont., offers a "totally non-fattening!" PMS-fighting 75-minute chocolate body wrap that starts with a chocolate salt glow and finishes with the application of a chocolate whipped cream lotion for $95. (Thanks, but I think I'll stick with the Oh Henry.)

It's the same story with coffee. Remember when a cup of joe was just watery Nabob warming on a burner? Now that it is fair trade, organic and custom-roasted, coffee has enough gourmet cred to become a staple of the beauty industry. There are coffee cellulite creams and latte conditioners: According to the trade publication Cosmetics Design, more than 140 skin-care products containing caffeine were launched in the United States last year, compared with 21 in 2003. Just this month, OPI launched a line of caffeinated products (cappuccino massage and espresso scrub) to "wake up" tired hands and feet.

And then there's wine. Arguably, the grape never had to fight its way up the foodie chain, but mass oenophilia has exploded in recent years. Wine drinking is up: Annual per-capita consumption of wine in the United States now stands at a record high of around 2.8 gallons, according to Merrill & Associates research. No wonder cosmetics companies are targeting us winos. Lancôme's Vinefit claims to provide the anti-aging benefits of resveratrol in a moisturizer, while Le Vin, which uses organic grape-seed extracts to stimulate cell renewal and boost collagen, is a newly launched all-wine therapy line.

Here in Canada, Ste. Anne's spa in Ontario's Haldimand Hills is offering a seasonal vinotherapy treatment: For $120, you can be swathed in moscato mousse and receive a mini-facial infused with the aromas of chardonnay and Chianti. (It's up to you which wine you will enjoy afterward at dinner.)

Now salt, which has just recently leapfrogged from the Morton's iodized canister to the costly, druggy sounding rare pink Himalayan variety, is the next frontier. Ahava's creams and scrubs made from Dead Sea salts are popping up on drugstore shelves. The Salt Lamp Company is hawking an anti-wrinkle cream. And on the appropriately named Saltspring Island in British Columbia, Saltspring Soapworks is producing its own indigenous line of "Body Gelato" scrubs made with pure sea salts.

As for my high-pressure salting experience, I can happily report that although the sensation was as if my face was being sucked through a straw, and I left feeling like a bar snack, my skin did appear smoothed and rejuvenated.

One can only wonder if this gourmet dermatology trend continues, what's next: Berkshire pork belly moisturizer? Or being wrapped in strips of (organic, chemical-free) bacon?

kvonhahn@globeandmail.com